This was possibly the second worst experience I ever had shopping for jewelry, the first being the Kay's Jewelry incident.
My parents were nice enough to take me the Pagoda jewelry place to pick out a nice pendant for my birthday. I have been really wanting a crossbone necklace, but one that's made of sterling silver. The girl working there seemed nice enough at first, until we found out she screwed us over big time. After a few minutes of picking and choosing I picked out a pendant I wanted (mind you it was just a pendant with absolutely no chain included) and a pair of matching earrings. We paid about $70 for both and the girl gave us a gift receipt saying we can choose $25 more worth of stuff in a week because we spent over $50. She also told us that we should probably buy insurance for the pendant in case something falls out. We paid $5 on top of the original cost for insurance. A day goes by and I'm wearing my pendant. I started noticing that there were markings on the pendant, and I realized that it was really scratched and looked beyond cheap. The fact that all of their sterling is marked 925 china doesn't really set me at ease either. So I showed my parents who agreed that we definitely need to take it back. I put it back in the box exactly as I had purchased it and as I was looking at the insurance paper it stated that they refused to take back ANYTHING you buy even if it is a manufacturing error if you don't have insurance added. I was taken aback. The pendant on its own was about $50 and the girl didn't state they refused to take any of their items back, she just started talking really fast about the insurance and skipped over the fine print. We wanted our money back at that point. I figured that even if I found a pendant I really liked, I would keep having to pay $5 on top of the already cost for them to even take it back. I think that is pretty borderline unethical because even Wal Mart takes everything back even without a receipt. For this caliber of a store to not accept returns is ridiculous. I did not know this until AFTER purchase, nor did I know that the pendant was scratched because the manufacturer put it together in a way where the charm is hitting the silver disc and scratches it in a day. I just about had enough and I was pissed because it was meant to be a gift and that was the first pendant I really liked in a long time. I am very picky about what I wear and didn't find anything else to replace it with. The next day when we went to return it, we found out the girl the other time screwed us over and actually stole the chain from my pendant because it even said on the receipt it was supposed to come with one. I was just so caught up in the fact I got something, I didn't notice the fine print since she just threw it all together in a small blue bag. Apparently after a few minutes the girl ended up believing me that it didn't come with a chain, not mentioning I seriously don't see why I would lie about an ugly thin chain like that. She didn't apologize for what happened and from what I could tell it was almost like they were the ones annoyed. The first thing she did was rip off the $25 coupon as if thinking that I would be dumb enough to spend a penny more in a place like that. She didn't give back the insurance money either which I think in this case she definitely should've since they not only stole from me, but lied. I can easily say I'm done buying jewelry at the mall from sleazy shops.
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